John Sargent is the CEO of Macmillan, the U.S. companies of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a venerable enterprise based in Stuttgart, Germany. The American imprints include Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, Henry Holt, and St. Martin's Press, among others. Sargent is what in another age might be called a scion of a publishing family. His father ran Doubleday and Company in the 1960s and 1970s, its glory days.

What makes Sargent notable now is that he has taken a firm position on behalf of Macmillan with Amazon about who would control the price of e-books, and the Internet behemoth acknowledged that "ultimately" it would have to "capitulate." To the consumer, that a big publisher wants to charge more for its books may not immediately seem like a big breakthrough for the world of letters, but it almost certainly is that (about which, more in a moment).

Moreover, this is not the first time that Sargent has taken a leadership role on behalf of publishers grappling with the complexities and enormous potential of the digital age. As chairman of the Association of American Publishers, Sargent joined other publishers and the Authors Guild in a lawsuit to forestall Google's intention to digitize millions of books without regard to copyright. The suit was settled in 2008 and Google agreed to pay $125 million to establish a system for registering digital use and to pay royalties to authors and publishers going forward. Predictably, that agreement has its critics as well as its admirers. The concept of giving Google so much of a head start in the creation of a vast digital library still makes many in the book universe, including potential competitors and the Justice Department, unhappy. Another hearing on the Google accord is scheduled for February 18.

But the main point about the Google settlement and Macmillan's confrontation with Amazon is that the publishers, significantly, again with the support of the Authors Guild, are stepping into the fray to represent their interests despite the popular and commercial dominance of these great Internet-based companies and the momentum they have in setting new terms for distribution of information and entertainment. What Sargent did on behalf of Macmillan--there is no evidence that he was acting in consultation or collaboration with other publishers--is challenge Amazon's policy of offering e-book bestsellers at $9.99. Based on the publishers' list price, these were loss leaders designed to boost the sales of the company's proprietary reading device, the Kindle, which retails for $259. The publishers' concern was that Amazon was preparing to declare that it would no longer accept a loss on each sale and would insist that books be made available to it at lower cost. The result would be a precipitous drop in revenues for everyone--except Amazon.

What Sargent told Amazon, he said in a statement addressed to "authors/ illustrators and the literary agent community," is that, in early March, Macmillan would begin selling to Amazon at prices it set and would pay the retailer a 30 percent commission on what is known as the "agency" model. The seller is, in effect, paid a fee for its services. Amazon immediately retaliated by deactivating direct sales of Macmillan books on its site, even withdrawing sample chapters that had already been sent to consumers. But after forty-eight hours, Amazon relented, accusing Macmillan of punishing consumers with higher prices (a few dollars), yet acknowledging that eventually it would have to go along or lose the sales altogether. Negotiations on these new conditions continued through the week, and the final terms have not been disclosed.

Amazon plainly was influenced by the fact that Apple is preparing to accept the agency model for book sales on its new iPad and that Google, also preparing to launch a book retailing site later this year, has now said publishers will set the prices. The Kindle's overwhelming share of the digital book market is no longer assured.

To be clear: the price of most books on Amazon and on the Kindle will not be affected by this dust-up. On EarlyWord, a blog for librarians, Nora Rawlinson wrote that of "the nine titles with full reviews in the current New York Times Book Review, only one is available in a $9.99 Kindle edition. Three are not available at all and the rest were just $1.13 to $2.83 less than the hardcover price." The underlying issue is that Amazon's strategy of driving prices down (while reaping the lucrative reward of selling Kindles) meant that publishers and authors would find it increasingly difficult to generate the revenues necessary to sustain their businesses as the percentage of e-book sales rose compared with higher-priced print books. Despite the apparent outcome of the Macmillan case, that tug-of-war is certain to continue with other publishers, perhaps, or over other conditions. And the same goes for the Google settlement. Whatever the judge decides will almost certainly lead to challenges by one party or another.

So John Sargent's demarche with Amazon and his role in the Google accord by no means assure the future of publishing. What they do mean is that, in the frenetic pace of change for book distribution, publishers are taking a stand and even holding their own. For that, John Sargent deserves thanks.

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Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

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Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

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Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

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A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

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